THE VALLEY PIKE
As he moved away from the stone house, the vicinity of Ashby and the
line of Tigers behind the fence, he became aware that not a small
portion of Wheat's Battalion had broken ranks and was looting the
wagons. There were soldiers like grey ants about a sutler's wagon.
Steve, struggling and shouldering boldly enough now, managed to get
within hailing distance. Men were standing on the wheels, drawing out
boxes and barrels and throwing them down into the road, where the ants
swarmed to the attack. Not the Tigers alone, but a number of Ashby's men
as well engaged in the general business. The latter, either not so
hungry or more valiant to abstain from the smaller rifling, turned to
the plunder of horses. There were horses enough, dead and wounded, along
that frightful road. Others were unhurt, still harnessed to wagons, or
corralled in fence corners, or huddled with prisoners in the trodden
fields. Horses, to the trooper of the Valley, were as horses in the ten
years' war at Troy--the prized spoil of battle, the valued trophies,
utilities outweighing all filagree spoil. Each man of Ashby's owned the
horse he rode, burned to provide himself with a second mount, and flamed
to be able to say at home, "This horse I took at Middletown, just before
we drove the Yankees out of the Valley and ended the war!" "Home," for
many of them was not at all distant--gallop a few miles, deposit the
prize, return, catch up before Winchester! Wild courage, much manliness,
much chivalry, ardent devotion to Ashby and the cause, individualism of
a citizen soldiery, and a naive indiscipline all their own--such were
Ashby's men! Not a few now acted upon the suggestion of the devil who
tempts through horse flesh. In the dust they went by Steve like figures
of a frieze.
Inefficient even in plundering, he found himself possessed of but a
handful of crackers, a tin of sardines--a comestible he had never seen
before and did not like when he tasted it--and a bottle of what he
thought wine but proved vinegar. Disgusted, he moved to the next wagon,
overswarmed like the first by grey ants. This time it was ale,
unfamiliar still, but sufficiently to his liking. "Gawd! Jest to drink
when you're thirsty, and eat when you're hungry, and sleep when you're
sleepy--"
A drum beat, a bugle blew. _Fall in! Fall in!_ Officers passed from
wagon to wagon. They were ready enough with the flats of their swords.
"For shame, men, for shame! _Fall in! Fall in!_ General Jackson is
beyond Newtown by now. You don't want him to have to _wait_ for you, do
you? _Fall in!_"
The Valley pike, in the region of Middletown, proved a cumbered path.
From stone fence to stone fence, in the middle trough of dust, and on
the bordering of what had been, that morning, dew-gemmed grass and
flower, War the maniac had left marks. Overturned wagons formed
barriers around which the column must wind. Some were afire; the smoke
of burning straw and clothing and foodstuffs mingling with the yet
low-lying powder smoke and with the pall of Valley dust. Horses lay
stark across the way, or, dying, stared with piteous eyes. The sky was
like a bowl of brass, and in the concave buzzards were sailing. All
along there was underfoot much of soldiers' impedimenta--knapsacks,
belts, accoutrements of all kinds, rolled blankets and oilcloths,
canteens. Dead men did not lack. They lay in strange postures, and on
all the dust was thick. There were many wounded; the greater number of
these had somehow reached the foul grass and trampled flowers of the
wayside. Prisoners were met; squads brought in from the road, from
fields and woods. There was one group, men and horses covered with the
dust of all time, disarmed, hatless, breathless, several bleeding from
sabre cuts. One among them--a small man on a tall horse--indulged in
bravado. "What are you going to do with us now you've got us? You've
nowhere to take us to! Your damned capital's fallen--fell this morning!
Yes, it did! News certain. Rebellion's over and Jack Ketch's waiting for
you--waiting for every last dirty ragamuffin and slave-driver that calls
himself general or president, and for the rest of you, too! Pity you
didn't have just one neck so's he could do the whole damn thirteen
millions of you at once!--Jeff Davis and Lee and Johnston were hanged at
noon. This very moment Little Mac's in Richmond, marching down whatever
your damned Pennsylvania Avenue's called--"
A negro body servant marching in the rear of one of the contemptuous
companies broke ranks and rushed over to the reviling soldier. "You damn
po' white trash, shet yo' mouf or I'll mek you! Callin' Main Street
'Pennsylvania Avenue,' and talkin' 'bout hangin' gent'men what you ain't
got 'bility in you ter mek angry enuff ter swear at you! 'N Richmon'
fallen! Richmon' ain' half as much fallen as you is! Richmon' ain' never
gwine ter fall. I done wait on Marse Robert Lee once't at Shirley, an he
ain't er gwine ter let it! '_Pennsylvania_ Avenue!'"
Half a mile from Middletown they came up with a forlorn little company.
On a high bank above the road, huddled beneath three cedars, appeared
the theatrical troupe which had amused General Banks's army in
Strasburg. Men and women there were, a dozen actors, and they had with
them a cart bearing their canvas booth and the poor finery of their
wardrobe. One of the women nursed a baby; they all looked down like
wraiths upon the passing soldiers.
Firing broke out ahead. "Newtown," said the men beside Steve. "I've got
friends there. Told 'em when we came up the Valley after Kernstown we'd
come down again! 'N here we are, bigger 'n life and twice as natural!
That's Rockbridge making that awful noise. Must be a Yankee
battery--There it opens! Oh, we're going to have a chance, too!"
They were moving at double-quick. Steve simulated a stumble, caught
himself, groaned and fell out of line. The wall to the left blazed. He
uttered a yell and sprang back. "That's right!" said the man. "It's
taken most a year to learn it, but you feel a whole heap safer in line
than out of it when firing's going on. That's a nice little--what d'ye
call it?--they've planted there--"
"Avalanche," panted Steve. "O Gawd!" A minie ball had pierced the
other's brain. He fell without a sound, and Steve went on.
The troops entered the hamlet at a run, passing two of the Rockbridge
guns planted on a hillock and hurling shell against a Federal battery at
the far end of the street. There was hot fighting through the place,
then the enemy, rallied here, broke again and dispersed to the westward.
The grey soldiers swept through the place, and the people with tears and
laughter cried them welcome. On the porch of a comfortable house stood a
comfortable, comely matron, pale with ardent patriotism, the happy tears
running down her cheeks. Parched as were their throats the troops found
voice to cheer, as always, when they passed through these Valley towns.
They waved their colours vigorously; their ragged bit of a band played
"Old Virginny never tire." The motherly soul on the porch, unconscious
of self, uplifted, tremulous with emotion, opened wide her arms, "All of
you run here and kiss me!"
Late afternoon came and the army yet skirmished, marched, marched,
skirmished on the Valley pike. The heat decreased, but dust and thirst
remained. Fatigue was the abominable thing. "Gawd!" thought Steve. "I
can't stand it any longer. I got ter quit, and ef I could shoot that
lieutenant, I would." The man whom the closing of the ranks had brought
upon his left began to speak in a slow, refined voice. "There was a
book published in England a year or so ago. It brings together old
observations, shoots and theories, welds them, and produces a Thor's
hammer that's likely to crack some heads. Once upon a time, it seems, we
went on four feet. It's a pity to have lost so valuable a faculty. Oh,
Jupiter! we are tired!"
A man behind put in his word. "To-morrow's Sunday. Two Sundays ago we
were at Meechum's River, and since then we've marched most two hundred
miles, and fought two battles and a heap of skirmishes! I reckon
there'll be a big fight to-morrow, with Old Jack jerking his hand in the
air as they say he's been doing! 'N all to the sound of church bells!
Oh, Moses, I'm tired!"
At sunset the bugles blew halt. The men dropped down on the tarnished
earth, on the vast, spectacular road to Winchester. They cared not so
much for supper, faint as they were; they wanted sleep. Supper they
had--all that could be obtained from the far corners of haversacks and
all that, with abounding willingness, the neighbouring farmhouses could
scrape together--but when it came to sleep--. With nodding heads the men
waited longingly for roll call and tattoo, and instead there came an
order from the front. "_A night march!_ O Lord, have mercy, for
Stonewall Jackson never does." _Fall in! Fall in! Column Forward!_
When they came to the Opequon they had a skirmish with a Massachusetts
regiment which fired a heavy volley into the cavalry ahead, driving it
back upon the 33d Virginia, next in column. The 33d broke, then rallied.
Other of the Stonewall regiments deployed in the fields and the 27th
advanced against the opposing force, part of Banks's rearguard. It gave
way, disappearing in the darkness of the woods. The grey column, pushing
across the Opequon, came into a zone of Federal skirmishers and
sharpshooters ambushed behind stone fences.
Somewhere about midnight Steve, walking in about the worst dream he had
ever had, determined that no effort was too great if directed toward
waking. It was a magic lantern dream--black slides painted only with stars
and fireflies, succeeded by slides in which there was a moment's violent
illumination, stone fences leaping into being as the musket fire ran along.
A halt--a company deployed--the foe dispersed, streaming off into the
darkness--the hurt laid to one side for the ambulances--_Column Forward!_
Sometimes a gun was unlimbered, trained upon the threatening breastwork and
fired. Once a shell burst beneath a wagon that had been drawn into the
fields. It held, it appeared, inflammable stores. Wagon and contents shot
into the air with a great sound and glare, and out of the light about the
place came a frightful crying. Men ran to right and left to escape the rain
of missiles; then the light died out, and the crying ceased. The column
went on slowly, past dark slides. Its progress seemed that of a snail army.
Winchester lay the fewest of miles away, but somewhere there was
legerdemain. The fewest of miles stretched like a rubber band. The troops
marched for three minutes, halted, marched again, halted, marched, halted.
To sleep--to sleep! _Column Forward!--Column Forward!_
There was a bridge to cross over a wide ditch. Steve hardly broke his
dream, but here he changed the current. How he managed he could scarce
have told, but he did find himself under the bridge where at once he lay
down. The mire and weed was like a blissful bed. He closed his eyes.
Three feet above was the flooring, and all the rearguard passing over.
It was like lying curled in the hollow of a drum, a drum beaten
draggingly and slow. "Gawd!" thought Steve. "It sounds like a Dead
March."
He slept, despite the canopy of footsteps. He might have lain like a log
till morning but that at last the flooring of the bridge rebelled. A
section of a battery, kept for some hours at Middletown, found itself
addressed by a courier, jaded, hoarse as a raven of the night. "General
Jackson says, 'Bring up these guns.' He says, 'Make haste.'" The battery
limbered up and came with a heavy noise down the pike, through the
night. Before it was the rearguard; the artillery heard the changed
sound as the men crossed the wooden bridge. The rearguard went on; the
guns arrived also at the ditch and the overtaxed bridge. The Tredegar
iron gun went over and on, gaining on the foot, with intent to pass. The
howitzer, following, proved the last straw. The bridge broke. A gun
wheel went down, and amid the oaths of the drivers a frightened screech
came from below. "O Gawd! lemme get out of this!"
Pulled out, he gave an account of his cut foot, piteous enough. The
lieutenant listened. "The 65th? Scamp, I reckon, but flesh is weak!
Hasn't been exactly a circus parade for any of us. Let him ride, men--if
ever we get this damned wheel out! Keep an eye on him, Fleming!--Now,
all together!--Pull, White Star!--Pull, Red Star!"
The column came to Kernstown about three o'clock in the morning. Dead as
were the troops the field roused them. "Kernstown! Kernstown! We're back
again."
"Here was where we crossed the pike--there's the old ridge. Griffin
tearing up his cards--and Griffin's dead at McDowell."
"That was Fulkerson's wall--that shadow over there! There's the bank
where the 65th fought.--Kernstown! I'm mighty tired, boys, but I've got
a peaceful certainty that that was the only battle Old Jack's ever going
to lose!"
"Old Jack didn't lose it. Garnett lost it."
"That ain't a Stonewall man said that! General Garnett's in trouble. I
reckon didn't anybody lose it. Shields had nine thousand men, and he
just gained it!--Shields the best man they've had in the Valley.
Kernstown!--Heard what the boys at Middletown called Banks? _Mr.
Commissary Banks._ Oh, law! that pesky rearguard again!"
The skirmish proved short and sharp. The Federal rearguard gave way,
fell back on Winchester; the Confederate column, advance, main and rear,
heard in the cold and hollow of the night the order: _Halt. Stack arms!
Break ranks!_ From regiment to regiment ran a further word. "One hour.
You are to rest one hour, men. Lie down."
In the first grey streak of dawn a battery which had passed in turn each
segment of the column, came up with the van, beyond Kernstown
battlefield, and halted upon a little rise of ground. All around
stretched grey, dew-wet fields and woods, and all around lay an army,
sleeping, strange sight in the still and solemn light, with the birds
cheeping overhead! The guns stopped, the men got down from limber and
caisson, the horses were unhitched. "An hour's sleep--Kernstown
battlefield!"
An officer whose command lay in the field to the left, just beyond a
great breach that had been made in the stone fence, arose from the cloak
he had spread in the opening and came over to the guns. "Good-morning,
Randolph! Farmers and soldiers see the dawn!
Light thickens; and the crow
Makes wing to the rooky wood.
The poor guns! Even they look overmarched." As he spoke he stroked the
howitzer as though it had been a living thing.
"We've got with us a stray of yours," said the artilleryman. "Says he
has a cut foot, but looks like a skulker. Here you, Mr.
Under-the-Bridge! come from behind that caisson--"
Out of a wood road, a misty opening overarched by tall and misty trees,
came two or three horsemen, the foremost of whom rode up to the battery.
"Good-morning, Randolph! General Jackson will be by in a moment. General
Ewell lies over there on the Front Royal road. He has eaten breakfast,
and is clanking his spurs and swearing as they swore in Flanders." He
pointed with his gauntleted hand, turning as he did so in the saddle.
The action brought recognition of Cleave's presence upon the road.
Stafford ceased speaking and sat still, observing the other with
narrowed eyes.
Cleave addressed the figure, which, there being no help for it, had come
from behind the caisson. "You, Dagg, of course! Straggling or
deserting--I wonder which this time! Are you not ashamed?"
"Gawd, major! I just couldn't keep up. I got a cut foot--"
"Sit down on that rock.--Take off your shoe--what is left of it. Now,
let me see. Is that the cut, that scratch above the ankle?"
"It ain't how deep it is. It's how it hurts."
"There is no infantryman to-day who is not footsore and tired. Only the
straggler or deserter has as few marks as you to show. There is the
company, down the road, in the field. To-night I shall find out if you
have been with it all the day. Go! You disgrace the very mountains where
you were born--"
Beyond the guns was a misty bend of the road. The light was stronger, in
the east a slender streamer of carnation; the air dank, cool and still.
On the edge of Kernstown battlefield a cock crew; a second horn came
faintly. Very near at hand sounded a jingle of accoutrement; Stonewall
Jackson, two or three of the staff with him, came around the turn and
stopped beside the guns. The men about them and the horses, and on the
roadside, drew themselves up and saluted. Jackson gave his slow quiet
nod. He was all leaf bronze from head to foot, his eyes just glinting
beneath the old forage cap. He addressed the lieutenant. "You will
advance, sir, in just three quarters of an hour. There are batteries in
place upon the ridge before us. You will take position there, and you
will not leave until ordered." His eyes fell upon Stafford. "Have you
come from General Ewell?"
"Yes, general. He sends his compliments, and says he is ready."
"Good! Good!--What is this soldier doing here?" He looked at Steve.
"It is a straggler, sir, from my regiment. Lieutenant Randolph picked
him up--"
"Found him under a bridge, sir. I'd call him a deserter--"
Steve writhed as though, literally, the eyes were cold steel and had
pinned him down. "Gawd, general! I didn't desert! Cross my heart and may
I go to hell if I did! I was awful tired--hungry and thirsty--and my
head swimming--I just dropped out, meaning to catch up after a bit! I
had a sore foot. Major Cleave's awful hard on me--"
"You're a disgrace to your company," said Cleave. "If we did not need
even shadows and half men you would be drummed home to Thunder Run,
there to brag, loaf, and rot--"
Steve began to whine. "I meant to catch up, I truly did!" His eyes,
shifting from side to side, met those of Stafford. "Gawd, I'm lost--"
Stafford regarded his quondam prisoner curiously enough. His gaze had in
it something of cruelty, of pondering, and of question. Steve writhed.
"I ain't any better 'n anybody else. Life's awful! Everybody in the
world's agin me. Gawd knows Major Cleave's so--" Cleave made a sound of
contempt.
Stafford spoke. "I do not think he's actually a deserter. I remember his
face. I met him near Middletown, and he gave me his regiment and
company. There are many stragglers."
Steve could have fallen and worshipped. "Don't care whether he did it
for me, or jest 'cause he hates that other one! He does hate him! 'N I
hate him, too--sending me to the guardhouse every whip-stitch!" This to
himself; outside he tried to look as though he had carried the colours
from Front Royal, only dropping them momentarily at that unfortunate
bridge. Jackson regarded him with a grey-blue eye unreconciled, but
finally made his peculiar gesture of dismissal. The Thunder Run man
saluted and stumbled from the roadside into the field, the dead Tiger's
musket in the hollow of his arm, his face turned toward Company A. Back
in the road Jackson turned his eyes on Cleave. "Major, in half an hour
you will advance with your skirmishers. Do as well as you have done
heretofore and you will do well--very well. The effect of Colonel
Brooke's wound is graver than was thought. He has asked to be retired.
After Winchester you will have your promotion."
With his staff he rode away--a leaf brown figure, looming large in the
misty half light, against the red guidons of the east. Stafford went
with him. Randolph, his cannoneers and drivers dropped beside the pieces
and were immediately asleep--half an hour now was all they had. The
horses cropped the pearled wayside grass. Far away the cocks were
crowing. In the east the red bannerols widened. There came a faint
blowing of bugles. Cleave stooped and took up his cloak.
Steve, stumbling back over the wet field, between the ranks of sleeping
men, found Company A--that portion of it not with the skirmishers. Every
soul was asleep. The men lay heavily, some drawn into a knot, others
with arms flung wide, others on their faces. They lay in the dank and
chilly dawn as though death had reaped the field. Steve lay down beside
them. "Gawd! when will this war be over?"
He dreamed that he was back at Thunder Run, crouching behind a certain
boulder at a turn of the road that wound up from the Valley. He had an
old flintlock, but in his dream he did not like it, and it changed to
one of the beautiful modern rifles they were beginning to take from the
Yankees. There were no Yankees on Thunder Run. Steve felt assured of
that in his dream; very secure and comfortable. Richard Cleave came
riding up the road on Dundee. Steve lifted the rifle to his shoulder and
sighted very carefully. It seemed that he was not alone behind the
boulder. A shadowy figure with a sword, and a star on his collar, said,
"Aim at the heart." In the dream he fired, but before the smoke could
clear so that he might know his luck the sound of the shot changed to
clear trumpets, long and wailing. Steve turned on his side. "Reveille! O
Gawd!"
The men arose, the ranks were formed. _No breakfast?_--Hairston
Breckinridge explained the situation. "We're going to breakfast in
Winchester, men! All the dear old cooks are getting ready for us--rolls
and waffles and broiled chicken and poached eggs and coffee--and all the
ladies in muslin and ribbons are putting flowers on the table and
saying, 'The Army of the Valley is coming home!'--Isn't that a Sunday
morning breakfast worth waiting for? The sooner we whip Banks the sooner
we'll be eating it."
"All right. All right," said the men. "We'll whip him all right."
"We're sure to whip him now we've got Steve back!"
"That's so. Where've you been anyway, Steve, and how many did you kill
on the road?"
"I killed three," said Steve. "General Ewell's over thar in the woods,
and he's going to advance 'longside of us, on the Front Royal road.
Rockbridge 'n the rest of the batteries are to hold the ridge up there,
no matter what happens! Banks ain't got but six thousand men, and it
ought ter be an easy job--"
"Good Lord! Steve's been absent at a council of war--talking familiarly
with generals! Always thought there must be more in him than appeared,
since there couldn't well be less--"
"Band's playing! 'The Girl I Left Behind Me'!"
"That's Winchester! Didn't we have a good time there 'fore and after
Bath and Romney? 'Most the nicest Valley town!--and we had to go away
and leave it blue as indigo--"
"I surely will be glad to see Miss Fanny again--"
"Company C over there's most crazy. It all lives there--"
"Three miles! That ain't much. I feel rested. There goes the 2d! Don't
it swing off long and steady? Lord, we've got the hang of it at last!"
"Will Cleave's got to be sergeant.--'N he's wild about a girl in
Winchester. Says his mother and sister are there, too, and he can't
sleep for thinking of the enemy all about them. Children sure do grow up
quick in war time!"
"A lot of things grow up quick--and a lot of things don't grow at all.
There goes the 4th--long and steady! Our turn next."
Steve again saw from afar the approach of the nightmare. It stood large
on the opposite bank of Abraham's Creek, and he must go to meet it. He
was wedged between comrades--Sergeant Coffin was looking straight at him
with his melancholy, bad-tempered eyes--he could not fall out, drop
behind! The backs of his hands began to grow cold and his unwashed
forehead was damp beneath matted, red-brown elf locks. From considerable
experience he knew that presently sick stomach would set in. When the
company splashed through Abraham's Creek he would not look at the
running water, but when he looked at the slopes he was expected
presently to climb he saw that there was fighting there and that the
nightmare attended! Steve closed his eyes. "O Gawd, take care of me--"
Later on, when the ridge was won he found himself, still in the company
of the nightmare, cowering close to the lock of a rail fence that
zigzagged along the crest. How he got there he really did not know. He
had his musket still clutched--his mountaineer's instinct served for
that. Presently he made the discovery that he had been firing, had fired
thrice, it appeared from his cartridge box. He remembered neither firing
nor loading, though he had some faint recollection of having been upon
his knees behind a low stone wall--he saw it now at right angles with
the rail fence. A clover field he remembered because some one had said
something about four-leaved clovers, and then a shell had come by and
the clover turned red. Seized with panic he bit a cartridge and loaded.
The air was rocking; moreover, with the heavier waves came a sharp
_zzzz-ip! zzzzzz-ip!_ Heaven and earth blurred together, blended by the
giant brush of eddying smoke. Steve tasted powder, smelled powder. On
the other side of the fence, from a battery lower down the slope to the
guns beyond him two men were running--running very swiftly, with bent
heads. They ran like people in a pelting rain, and between them they
carried a large bag or bundle, slung in an oilcloth. They were tall and
hardy men, and they moved with a curious air of determination. "Carrying
powder! Gawd! before I'd be sech a fool--" A shell came, and
burst--burst between the two men. There was an explosion, ear-splitting,
heart-rending. A part of the fence was wrecked; a small cedar tree torn
into kindling. Steve put down his musket, laid his forehead upon the
rail before him, and vomited.
The guns were but a few yards above him, planted just below the crest,
their muzzles projecting over. Steve recognized Rockbridge. He must, he
thought, have been running away, not knowing where he was going, and
infernally managed to get up here. The nightmare abode with him. His
joints felt like water, his heart was straightened, stretched, and
corded in his bosom like a man upon the rack. He pressed close into the
angle of the fence, made himself of as little compass as his long and
gangling limbs allowed, and held himself still as an opossum feigning
death. Only his watery blue eyes wandered--not for curiosity, but that
he might see and dodge a coming harm.
Before him the ridge ran steeply down to a narrow depression, a little
vale, two hundred yards across. On the further side the land rose again
to as high a hill. Here was a stone fence, which even as he looked,
leaped fire. Above it were ranged the blue cannon--three batteries, well
served. North and South, muzzle to muzzle, the guns roared across the
green hollow. The blue musketrymen behind the wall were using minies. Of
all death-dealing things Steve most hated these. They came with so
unearthly a sound--zzzz-ip! zzzzz-ip!--a devil noise, a death that
shrieked, taunted, and triumphed. To-day they made his blood like water.
He crouched close, a mere lump of demoralization, behind a veil of wild
buckwheat.
Rockbridge was suffering heavily, both from the opposing Parrotts and
from sharpshooters behind the wall. A belated gun came straining up the
slope, the horses doing mightily, the men cheering. There was an opening
in a low stone wall across the hillside, below Steve. The gate had been
wrenched away and thrown aside, but the thick gatepost remained, and it
made the passage narrow--too narrow for the gun team and the carriage to
pass. All stopped and there was a colloquy.
"We've got an axe?"
"Yes, captain."
"John Agnor, you've felled many a tree. Take the axe and cut that post
down."
"Captain, I will be killed!"
"Then you will be killed doing your duty, John. Get down."
Agnor got the axe, swung it and began chopping. The stone wall across
the hollow blazed more fiercely; the sharpshooters diverted their
attention from the men and horses higher upon the hill. Agnor swung the
axe with steadiness; the chips flew far. The post was cut almost through
before his bullet came. In falling he clutched the weakened obstruction,
and the two came down together. The gun was free to pass, and it passed,
each cannoneer and driver looking once at John Agnor, lying dead with a
steady face. It found place a few yards above Steve in his corner, and
joined in the roar of its fellows, throwing solid shot and canister.
A hundred yards and more to the rear stood a barn. The wounded from all
the guns, strung like black beads along the crest, dragged themselves or
were carried to this shelter. Hope rose in Steve's heart. "Gawd! I'll
creep through the clover and git there myself." He started on hands and
knees, but once out of his corner and the shrouding mass of wild
buckwheat, terror took him. The minies were singing like so many birds.
A line of blue musketrymen, posted behind cover, somewhat higher than
the grey, were firing alike at gunners, horses, and the men passing to
and fro behind the fighting line. Steve saw a soldier hobbling to the
barn throw up his arms, and pitch forward. Two carrying a third between
them were both struck. The three tried to drag themselves further, but
only the one who had been borne by the others succeeded. A shell pierced
the roof of the barn, burst and set the whole on fire. Steve turned like
a lizard and went back to the lock of the fence and the tattered
buckwheat. He could hear the men talking around the gun just beyond.
They spoke very loud, because the air was shaken like an ocean in storm.
They were all powder-grimed, clad only in trousers and shirt, the shirt
open over the breast, and sleeves rolled up. They stood straight, or
bent, or crept about the guns, all their movements swift and rhythmic.
Sometimes they were seen clearly; sometimes the smoke swallowed them.
When seen they looked larger than life, when only heard their voices
came as though earth and air were speaking. "Sponge out.--All right.
Fire! Hot while it lasts, but it won't last long. I have every
confidence in Old Jack and Old Dick. Drat that primer! All right!--Three
seconds! Jerusalem! that created a sensation. The Louisianians are
coming up that cleft between the hills. All the Stonewall regiments in
the centre. Ewell to flank their left. Did you ever hear Ewell swear?
Look out! wheel's cut through. Lanyard's shot away. Take handkerchiefs.
Haven't got any--tear somebody's shirt. Number 1! Number 2! Look out!
look out--Give them hell. Good Heaven! here's Old Jack. General, we hope
you'll go away from here! We'll stay it out--give you our word. Let
them enfilade ahead!--but you'd better go back, sir."
"Thank you, captain, but I wish to see--"
A minie ball imbedded itself in a rail beside Steve's cheek. Before he
could recover from this experience a shell burst immediately in front of
his panel. He was covered with earth, a fragment of shell sheared away
the protecting buckwheat and a piece of rail struck him in the back with
force. He yelled, threw down his musket and ran.
He passed John Agnor lying dead by the gateway, and he reached somehow
the foot of the hill and the wide fields between the embattled ridges
and the Valley pike, the woods and the Front Royal road. He now could
see the Federal line of battle, drawn on both sides of the pike, but
preponderantly to the westward. They were there, horse and foot and
bellowing artillery, and they did not look panic-stricken. Their flags
were flying, their muskets gleaming. They had always vastly more and
vastly better bands than had the grey, and they used them more
frequently. They were playing now--a brisk and stirring air, sinking and
swelling as the guns boomed or were silent. The mist was up, the sun
shone bright. "Gawd!" thought Steve. "I'd better be there than here! We
ain't a-goin' to win, anyhow. They've got more cannon, and a bigger
country, and all the ships, and pockets full of money. Once't I had a
chance to move North--"
He had landed in a fringe of small trees by a little runlet, and now,
under this cover, he moved irresolutely forward. "Ef I walked toward
them with my hands up, they surely wouldn't shoot. What's that?--Gawd!
Look at Old Jack a-comin'! Reckon I'll stay--Told them once't on Thunder
Run I wouldn't move North for nothing! _Yaaaihhhh! Yaaaaihhh_--"
_Yaaihhhhh! Yaaihhhhh! Yaaaihh! Yaaaaaaaihhhh!_ Ten thousand grey
soldiers with the sun on their bayonets--
* * * * *
There came by a riderless horse, gentle enough, unfrightened, wanting
only to drink at the little stream. Steve caught him without
difficulty, climbed into the saddle and followed the army. The army was
a clanging, shouting, triumphant thing to follow--to follow into the
Winchester streets, into a town that was mad with joy. A routed army was
before it, pouring down Loudoun Street, pouring down Main Street,
pouring down every street and lane, pouring out of the northern end of
the town, out upon the Martinsburg pike, upon the road to the frontier,
the road to the Potomac. There was yet firing in narrow side streets, a
sweeping out of single and desperate knots of blue. Church bells were
pealing, women young and old were out of doors, weeping for pure joy,
laughing for the same, praising, blessing, greeting sons, husbands,
lovers, brothers, friends, deliverers. A bearded figure, leaf brown, on
a sorrel nag, answered with a gravity strangely enough not without
sweetness the acclamation with which he was showered, sent an aide to
hasten the batteries, sent another with an order to General George H.
Steuart commanding cavalry, jerked his hand into the air and swept on in
pursuit out by the Martinsburg pike. The infantry followed him,
hurrahing. They tasted to-day the sweets of a patriot soldiery relieving
a patriot town. The guns came thundering through, the horses doing well,
the proud drivers, cannoneers, officers, waving caps and hats, bowing to
half-sobbing hurrahs, thrown kisses, praises, blessings. Ewell's
division poured through--Ewell on the flea-bitten grey, Rifle, swearing
his men forward, pithily answering the happy people, all the while the
church bells clanging. The town was in a clear flame of love,
patriotism, martial spirit, every heart enlarged, every house thrown
open to the wounded whom, grey and blue alike, the grey surgeons were
bringing in.
For fear to keep him, Steve had left his captured horse's back and let
him go loose. Now on foot and limping terribly, trying to look equal
parts fire-eater and woe-begone, he applied to a grey-headed couple in
the dooryard of a small clean home. Would they give a hurt soldier a bed
and something to eat? Why, of course, of course they would! Come right
in! What command?
"The Stonewall Brigade, sir. You see, 'twas this a-way. I was helping
serve a gun, most of the gunners being strewed around dead--and we
infantrymen having to take a hand, and a thirty pound Parrott came and
burst right over us! I was stooping, like this, my thumb on the vent,
like that--and a great piece struck me in the back! I just kin hobble.
Thank you, ma'am! You are better to me than I deserve."